Now that the criminal trial is over and Zimmerman was acquitted I’m going to take a few minutes to share my perspective on this and explain some things about this incident and the legal battle that followed it. I’ll keep it as short as possible. In the legal section of our classes we talk quite a bit about what to expect after a self-defense shooting. In this case it was the worst of the worst in many ways. The media can and often does report partial or inaccurate information and the public will take a small piece of the truth (or sometimes a small piece of untruth) and form an uninformed opinion of what happened. This happens with many things in our society, not just acts of violence, because we have become addicted to instant information. We just can’t bring ourselves to wait for more complete and accurate information to form an opinion. The Zimmerman-Martin case was no different except that it occurred on such a grand scale and was fueled so heavily by the media and people in the public eye. Shortly after initial reports of the shooting came in I heard so many people supporting Trayvon Martin and slamming George Zimmerman despite having no clue what had taken place. All they knew was that an unarmed 17 year old kid was shot by a 29 year old man. Granted that sounds bad on the surface, but I learned a long time ago that forming an opinion based only on what is on the surface can lead to bad conclusions, as was common in this case. I saw countless posts on Facebook, from people I know are intelligent enough not to jump to conclusions, that were premature and uninformed. I had many people ask me what I thought since I’m a cop, and I repeatedly told people that I didn’t know enough to say either way. Nobody seemed to like that answer regardless of it being true, and that answer remained my answer throughout this process. There simply wasn’t enough information available to draw a conclusion and doing so would have been unfair to both Zimmerman and Martin. The one thing I did point out to the many people who were screaming for Zimmerman’s head was that he wasn’t arrested, and that told me something about what happened. I’ll explain. One of the things we talk about in class is the fact that you can do everything right and still be arrested at the time of a self-defense incident due to self-defense being an affirmative defense. Affirmative defense means that it falls upon the person defending themselves to justify their use of force. This is a radical departure from what most people know about the “innocent until proven guilty, proof beyond a reasonable doubt” basis for our legal system. For a murder or manslaughter trial the state must prove that the defendant (Zimmerman) knowingly and intentionally inflicted harm upon another person (Martin) knowing it was likely to cause death. That point was never in dispute. Zimmerman claimed from the start that he was attacked and shot Martin in self-defense so the burden fell on Zimmerman and his defense to show that his actions were reasonable under the self-defense portion of Florida law. Because of this it is very unlikely for the police to know who the shooter is, have him in hand, and still choose not to make an arrest unless there is a very compelling reason not to. This doesn’t guarantee that a person claiming self-defense won’t later be arrested and charged, and it doesn’t prove a person’s innocence, but it is uncommon for a reason. I told several people this and they immediately dismissed it because they “knew” Zimmerman was guilty because of what they saw and heard in the media. In the months that followed information slowly trickled into the public domain and most of it the information that was material to the case seemed to support Zimmerman’s assertion of self-defense. Of course there was plenty that wasn’t material and it seemed that was what people focused on. For example, people made a big ruckus over pictures of Martin looking like a “thug” and having a marijuana arrest. None of that was important, but people focused on it. What mattered was what happened that night. What did both of them do at the time that either did or didn’t support Zimmerman’s claim that he was protecting himself. To me the most important piece of information was that the physical evidence supported the claim that Zimmerman was on his back getting his head smacked into the concrete. The notion that it is never justifiable to shoot an unarmed attacker in self-defense is as ridiculous as the notion that you can shoot any unarmed attacker (in case you are wondering, there are people in both camps that believe very strongly about the matter). This case is a good example of why one would shoot an unarmed attacker. Having your head slammed into the concrete can easily lead to serious injury or death and would qualify as a lethal attack. The prosecution made a big deal about how minor Zimmerman’s injuries were. That was relatively inconsequential, what mattered was the manner in which the injuries occurred. One doesn’t have to wait until they have been shot to return fire any more than one must wait until they have sustained brain damage from a beating . If the circumstances demonstrate that not taking action is likely to result in serious injury or death a person doesn’t have to wait until that injury has occurred to take action to prevent it. One of the most interesting things from this trial was the prosecution bringing in the professor that had taught a class Zimmerman attended. The class covered self-defense and topics such as the “stand your ground” law. As far as I could tell their contention was that Zimmerman learned when it was legal to use force to defend himself and that knowledge somehow made him more culpable. It is important to note that this same prosecutor would be quick to point out in any other criminal trial that ignorance of the law is no defense from it, and he would be correct. The idea that Zimmerman learning the law was somehow something to use against him in court shows just how badly the prosecution was grasping at straws. In the end I still cannot say that Zimmerman is “innocent”. Nobody can as none of us truly know what happened that night except George Zimmerman. There is a reason that courts return verdicts of “not guilty” rather than “innocent”. It simply means that the state was unable to make a sufficient case against the defendant to obtain a conviction. It was clear that the prosecution simply didn’t have a good case against George Zimmerman and a not guilty verdict was the only one that made sense. Based on what I saw the only reason this was ever even tried was the media frenzy and resulting uninformed public outcry. That is not a valid reason to make an arrest or try a case in court.
Posted on: Sun, 14 Jul 2013 06:17:21 +0000
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